Nine years after the sort-of release of the bizarre Leaf
trading card series, Star Trek received it’s first “straight” card set
from Topps in 1976. One of the most famous and well-known trading card
manufacturers, Topps was generally known for sports cards–baseball cards
in particular–but had experienced success with non-sport sets in the
1970's such as Planet Of The Apes and the classic Wacky Packages.

The Star Trek set of 88 cards and 22 stickers figured to
be another winner for Topps as Trek’s popularity was at it’s peak in
1976. But circumstances once again conspired to hamper Trek’s cardboard
commemoration as it did in 1967. The cards received limited distribution
and sold out quickly across the country with requests for re-orders
unanswered by Topps. The reasons why–like the 1967 Leaf set–have been
shrouded in mystery for decades although several theories have gained
wide acceptance by collectors. The most plausible of these, according to
an article in Non-Sport Update magazine in 1996 (“Star Trek: Two Sets
Beyond the Final Frontier” by Scott Thomas; Vol. 7, #1, 2-3/96), is that
production was stymied by a labor strike at Topps just days after the
cards went to press which lasted at least several weeks. By the time the
strike had been settled, Topps abandoned the Trek set to gear up for
production of that year’s baseball cards which were the company’s bread
and butter.

You’d think that with Star Trek’s
massive popularity in the mid-1970's that Topps would have eventually
returned to manufacturing the set, but at the time it was no doubt one
license of many that Topps had acquired. It may have been simply more
cost-effective for the company to move ahead with other scheduled
projects given the time and cost of re-setting printing plates and other
changes necessary to resume production of the set. Other theories
include a production slow-down due to a lawsuit Topps had been engaged
in by the rival Fleer company, as well as general “distribution
problems” stemming from shipping errors. Whatever the real reasons were,
they were no doubt compounded by the kind of collector and dealer
hoarding of “speculative” pop-culture collectibles during the 1970's
(anyone remember the Howard The Duck comics fiasco?) as can be evidenced
by the fact that some dealers today seem to have an abundance of the
Topps cards while other dealers have none at all. The relative scarcity
of the 1976 Topps set has predictably made it one of the more sought
after and expensive of Trek collectibles.

Although the Topps set shares problematic distribution under mysterious
circumstances with it’s older sibling, the 1967 Leaf set, it doesn’t
share that series’ bizarre presentation. The first Topps issue is a
straight-forward card set with color photos and matching captions on the
fronts with appropriate–and accurate–episode plot synopsis and
information on the backs. The set even depicts the TOS episodes in, more
or less, the same order that they were seen in TV syndication at the
time. Like most sets of the period the 88 cards were complimented by 22
stickers usually featuring head shots of the characters and captions
such as “Spock Forever!” or “Highly Illogical”. Since stickers were
inserted at a rate of 1 per pack–along with 5 cards–they are scarcer
than the cards themselves making the completion of a full set difficult
and expensive, as a “complete set” usually includes all cards and
stickers.

Originally priced at 10 cents, an
unopened wax-wrapper pack today sells at around $20-30 with individual
cards going for $2-5 and single stickers at around $5-8. A complete set
of all 88 cards and 22 stickers will set you back $400-700 in top
condition although many dealers sell the card and sticker sets
individually. An unopened display box–if you can find one–will probably
cost you $500-800; an empty display box itself can sell for $20 or more
and even the wax wrappers can get $5-8 by themselves.

Unfortunately I don’t personally have a complete set of
the cards or stickers (but I do have a wrapper!), just a collection of
singles which are presented here for your enjoyment. Anyone with cards
or stickers not seen here is urged to
send us scans of them to
post in this special (card fronts and backs; sticker fronts only).

Click thumbnails for larger
versions.

FRONT

BACK

Card #12

Note
the text at bottom right: "Be sure to watch for the new Star Trek
full length motion picture", although ST:TMP wouldn't come out for
another three years.